iTunes managed your music regardless of where it was kept (iTunes Library folder or external drive etc...). Around 2014, iTunes switched from managing the tracks using the XML file to using a Music library that was provided by the OS. Media changes on your iTunes library required a call to the API and then exporting it to the XML. Using Applescript you could easily write a script to export your playlists. Bind that to a key and it works.
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macOS Catalina Causes Issues for DJs Who Used iTunes With XML File Support
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As a consumer who is not a developer, I appreciate this article and others like it which bring attention to sometimes small but important changes which Apple introduces into a new OS but which are not disclosed.
I remember when changes to PDFKit caused headaches for some programs but I was completely unaware of Apple’s changes and why some of my programs (eg DEVONThink Pro) weren’t functioning properly.
While this is typical Apple, it would be nice if more articles about OS changes were written prior to the problems being disclosed.
Both apps are working on transitioning to the API and will continue to work with the manual export that is in the Music app. The fact that these two companies waited 5 years to transition shows more about what issues they deem high priority. Over time all active software accumulates technical debt. As developers, you need to budget your tech debt or risks hurting your app and customers. With 5 years of a heads up and continuing to use an antiquated method like an XML export over an API, largely increased those application's tech debt because now it gets built in a rush. Wonder how many of these Apps will charge an upgrade fee just for this change! I would say to them... "You've had 5 years and you did nothing!?!". How many paid upgrades have these apps had since the release of the API? Note: if you rely on apps for work and you don't pay for upgrades it's either Open Source/Freeware and you should give the devs some cash OR your app is developing a Technical Debt like you would not believe.
Because Apple doesn’t allow any of their new iOs software features to work on older macOS versions. They orphan you.
But other companies don’t test older software versions with new OS for monetary reasons. They want you to pay thousands of dollars for a new version every year.
Yet this isn’t the business model on windows. And it’s why after 28 years I’m not buying any more macs.
Yeah, it baffles me to hear people describe this as "undocumented," "secret," and "a hack." This has been a documented feature of iTunes for as long as I can remember. I think it's completely reasonable that someone might be surprised that it went away when they upgraded to Catalina. Most users don't pedantically follow Mac rumors like we all do.
All of this information is available on the Developer website. Also you know WWDC? Well for a week after the Keynote speech there are 100s of hours of talks all available online and I am sure it was mentioned in one of those talks. If a developer has told you that Apple never disclosed a depreciation then they are just not that interested in keeping up with the changes that might affect their application.
By the way: https://developer.apple.com/documentation/ituneslibrary?language=objc
That is the updated iTunes Library page from 2 years ago where they state "This framework was designed to replace the iTunes XML file that developers query to fetch track and playlist metadata." It's took less than a minute to find.
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Exactly why Apple has documented this change in their developer portal. "This framework was designed to replace the iTunes XML file that developers query to fetch track and playlist metadata."
If you are a developer that relies on any part of Mac OS and you don't use the portal to keep up to date they you and your app sucks!
Some misunderstanding here?
3rd party apps used iTunes XML to access music libraries. iTunes in this context was just a convenient way to organize albums.
Actual playback still happened in the apps, not iTunes.
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iTunes XML was read-only. If changes needed to be made to a collection that would need to happen in iTunes itself.
You are so wrong. With this SDK and Swift it's 3 lines of code to start retrieving data, 1 line to query, a line to loop through and done. From there you provide your application the data it requires. Parsing XML is not difficult but not easier than an API. In fact, within a weekend any developer could write an app that outputs the iTunes XML file. Hell a non-developer could do it with Applescript. I'm certain Automator would be able to do it for those that can't comprehend a conditional statement.
Different issue same ****. Like one of my previous replies none of these companies factored in their technical debt when deciding which changes to work into their app. Seems that the 32-bit drivers are failing although none are coming clean. For many of the USB issues it should have been corrected with a recompile of any 3rd party library in their build.
NOTE: This was also documented by Apple and reported on by various sites for years.
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API Access is way better than XML from a developer's side. What questionable apps? XML was read only.
That’s part of the fun reason windows still has tons of old crappy code in it with tons of special-case testing that causes all sorts of problems. Sometimes you have to abandon the past to get to the future.
I just don't use Music. The betas messed up my local library with that anyway, so it's only useful for apple music until I decide to rebuild the music library from iTunes.
Generally they can live side by side, but you need to add new music to both.
That’s awesome. How do Finder dialogue boxes behave, for example in like open and save boxes? Does the music link on the bottom left of a dialogue box point to just the Music app library?
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As a non-professional iTunes user, and slightly off topic. I believe this is all discussion about how third party apps access the music library, playlists etc.
Can someone confirm that the new music application still allows all of the smart playlist functionality using star ratings, play count etc?
Can someone confirm that the new music application still allows all of the smart playlist functionality using star ratings, play count etc?
Of course this was noticed. But apparently some people don't bother to check for these things before mindlessly clicking the "Upgrade" button.
Ah, the classic "other people's problems are not mine problems, therefore are irrelevant" attitude.
What happened with internet radio stations? I am using them daily and they seems to be gone in Catalina...
The point you actually made with that statement isn't the one you think you made.
That never stops some people on here always having an opinion that they feel the need to share though.
Developers of DJ software should be ‘playing around’ with beta OS versions. It‘s reliant on them to ensure compatibility and to highlight such issues during the beta process.
They should also have been working on transitioning to an alternative system if apple gave feedback saying they weren’t going to implement xml library support.
If their new system wasn’t going to be ready for release they should also have worked to inform their customers not to update.
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This +1000. But somehow it feels worse this time. Every year there are a few developers who are poorly prepared for a new macOS (Elektron were the worst, although this year it seems slightly better). However, I got so many emails from music developers last week telling me not to upgrade. Developers who have been fine in previous years. This is worrying.
Keeping an eye on Macrumors is one way of finding out these things. And posting this on Macrumors also helps with googling this topic.
I can verify that Algoriddim DJAY does indeed fully work on Catalina, including playlist support in the new music app . It was mentioned in their forum that they are already using the API and I upgraded to Catalina on my 2012 MacBook Air i7 I use for DJing....I was able to use the music app to modify a playlist, and changes appeared in DJAY when I relaunched it (or you can reload the libraries from the menu).
I will veryify, and I posted this in the forum, that the playlists are slow to load when you FIRST launch DJAY, and the first song you attempt to cue, or load on a deck will give you a brief spinning beach ball, but then it works as expected moving forward.
Of course, I did a complete backup right before I upgraded...I don't have a gig for a couple weeks so I figured now would be a good time to play with it, and can roll back if I have to....but for DJAY, all good.
For those that have not tried DJAY...it is amazing app, for iPhone, iPad, MacOS and Windows...with Spotify integration as well. It supports all the major Controllers, and you can Midi map any that it does not support natively. The latest iPad version also allows you to use the new FILES option in iOS 13 and access music from a HD or memory card. Really...if looking for a general purpose, GOOD DJ program, give DJAY a try...it is amazing to have people make requests and just be able to search Spotify right from within the program and pull the song right on a deck, you can then Beat Match it, Scratch it, etc etc etc. Pretty amazing to fire it up on my iPhone and be able to access all my Spotify playlists and actually DJ...
Now, please understand I totally get old school Vinyl DJing....and that is truly an art and I give full props to those that still use Vinyl, as well as Vinyl based control records for Serrato, Virtual DJ etc etc (BTW DJAY works with Vinyl as well)....but for my needs, and for the events I do...DJAY is amazingly good, and they have always supported quick updates for OS and iOS updates etc.
I will veryify, and I posted this in the forum, that the playlists are slow to load when you FIRST launch DJAY, and the first song you attempt to cue, or load on a deck will give you a brief spinning beach ball, but then it works as expected moving forward.
Of course, I did a complete backup right before I upgraded...I don't have a gig for a couple weeks so I figured now would be a good time to play with it, and can roll back if I have to....but for DJAY, all good.
For those that have not tried DJAY...it is amazing app, for iPhone, iPad, MacOS and Windows...with Spotify integration as well. It supports all the major Controllers, and you can Midi map any that it does not support natively. The latest iPad version also allows you to use the new FILES option in iOS 13 and access music from a HD or memory card. Really...if looking for a general purpose, GOOD DJ program, give DJAY a try...it is amazing to have people make requests and just be able to search Spotify right from within the program and pull the song right on a deck, you can then Beat Match it, Scratch it, etc etc etc. Pretty amazing to fire it up on my iPhone and be able to access all my Spotify playlists and actually DJ...
Now, please understand I totally get old school Vinyl DJing....and that is truly an art and I give full props to those that still use Vinyl, as well as Vinyl based control records for Serrato, Virtual DJ etc etc (BTW DJAY works with Vinyl as well)....but for my needs, and for the events I do...DJAY is amazingly good, and they have always supported quick updates for OS and iOS updates etc.
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I DJ for 2 radio stations and edit music videos for a licensed DJ pool. While I never trusted management via iTunes for DJs using Serato, VirtualDJ, Rekordbox etc, I see why many did.
This is a standard Apple thing, many have fallen victim to updating and having things just break.
I completely understand the yearly updates- but sometimes I wish they would wait a bit longer and allocated some resources to communicate with different software communities during development before deploying the next update.
But alas, there are good business related reasons why they stick with their schedule.
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If Spotify had 8 bar extended edits for most songs, a LOT of people would switch.
There’s also a legal grey area. Streaming services don’t typically include licensing for public performance. But the notion is really cool.
This is a standard Apple thing, many have fallen victim to updating and having things just break.
I completely understand the yearly updates- but sometimes I wish they would wait a bit longer and allocated some resources to communicate with different software communities during development before deploying the next update.
But alas, there are good business related reasons why they stick with their schedule.
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If Spotify had 8 bar extended edits for most songs, a LOT of people would switch.
There’s also a legal grey area. Streaming services don’t typically include licensing for public performance. But the notion is really cool.